that was majority leader harry reid just after the senate democrats emerged from their white house lunch today with the president. joining me now, one of the senators who met with the president today, senator debbie stabenow of michigan. 1994 in the middle of a health care war when i was chief of staff of the senate finance committee, i was sitting in on the senators' luncheons every week on this subject and i can tell you they got very contentious. there were moments when i thought maybe a punch was going to be thrown, maybe not. it was like nothing else i'd ever seen in the senate. what was it like up there today? was it a tense meeting? was it a unified meeting? >> you know, it was a unifying meeting. i have to say we started out by singing "happy birthday" to the president. there were no punches, there was no yelling. we are unified. first of all, we have had the first session of congressing the most productive i think in our history. from the jobs bill and equal pay, children's health insurance, credit card reform, fda tobacco legislation we've been trying to get done for 30 years.